


play with fire

by glundergun (cleardishwashers)



Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-22
Updated: 2019-12-21
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:33:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21893695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cleardishwashers/pseuds/glundergun
Summary: mac and dennis were banging in s5. the end.(tags aren’t working but there’s some substance abuse, internalized homophobia, etc— just canon-typical headassery rly)HAPPY BORTH IIA I LOVE YOUUUU
Relationships: Mac McDonald/Dennis Reynolds
Comments: 23
Kudos: 63





	1. The Gang Hits The Road

**Author's Note:**

  * For [skiesbelow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/skiesbelow/gifts).



Sleeping in a U-Haul is much harder than Dennis had imagined.

The door rattles, and he can feel every bump in the road, and there’s still an ever-so-faint smell of piss in the air, courtesy of Mac. He punches the pillow beneath his head into a slightly less lumpy shape and turns over, facing the wall instead of Mac’s feet.

“Dude,” he hears someone whisper, “you awake?”

“No, Mac, I’m not,” Dennis says, putting every inch of sarcasm he can into it.

“Well, now I can’t tell if you are or not—”

“Why would I be talking if I wasn’t awake?”

“This could be a sleep-talking situation, man!”

“Well— it’s  _ not,” _ Dennis says. “Whatever. What do you want?”

“I dunno,” Mac says, and the slight lift in his voice tells Dennis,  _ This is where the game starts. _

Dennis turns over again and sits up, twisting himself around so he can stare down at Mac. “Well, why’d you say anything in the first place?”

“I’m bored,” Mac says. (The invitation is clear.  _ Entertain me.) _

“No shit. We’re in a literal crate.”

Mac’s eyes sparkle in the barely-there light, and something in Dennis’s chest pulses. “C’mon, Den. You gotta have  _ something _ you wanna do.”

“Other than  _ sleep?” _

“Other than sleep.”

“You pick something.” Dennis is too tired to do anything  _ but _ poke the bear, test the waters, push the boundaries of how far Mac’s warped mental math can go to make this thing not gay.

But Mac takes it in stride (he always was more eager under the cover of darkness, as if he believes God can’t see them there). “Truth or dare?”

“Dare.” He throws a glance over at Dee and Frank, still soundly asleep.

“Okay, I dare you to… uh…”

The twin flares of impatience and arousal mix in his gut, and he surges forward, cutting Mac off. Mac’s mouth is still hanging a little open, and Dennis misjudged a bit so he ends up kissing Mac’s chin for a second, but they’ve done this enough times that they can both readjust within split seconds. Dennis crawls forwards so he’s straddling Mac, pushing himself right up against him. Mac’s hand automatically shifts downwards, to the small of his back, sliding up under his shirt. Mac’s nails scrape against Dennis’s bare skin, and Dennis moans a little. Mac draws back, and for a second Dennis wonders if he’s pushed it too far too fast. “You didn’t let me finish my sentence,” Mac says, his voice scraping and rough (and yet still breathy, as if Dennis has done something extraordinary to him). God, loving  _ Mac _ would be tantamount to suicide, but loving Mac like  _ this, _ when he’s all confidence and cocky grins, is a different story.

“What were you gonna dare me to do, baby boy?” Dennis asks, rolling his hips downwards, feeling Mac stiffen beneath him. “C’mon, you can tell me.”

“Oh, blow me,” Mac groans, and Dennis honestly isn’t sure if he means it literally or figuratively but either way he’s got his opening. He grinds against Mac once more for good measure before pushing him backwards so that he’s laying flat. Mac spreads his legs, allowing Dennis easy access to the sensitive inner skin of his thighs. Dennis pulls Mac’s pants off him and palms Mac’s hard-on through the thin fabric of his boxers, and then—

“No, no, no, no,  _ no!” _ Dee half-yells. Mac pushes Dennis off him and yanks his pants back on, both with more force than strictly necessary. “What the fuck! What the fuck! You can’t just blow each other—”

“Dee, you ginormous bitch, lower your goddamn voice!” Mac whisper-shouts, panic saturating his voice. “And nothing— it was just—”

“Oh, now is  _ not _ the time for your stupid gay repression shit,” Dee snaps. “Jesus shitting  _ Christ—” _

“Shut the  _ fuck _ up,” Dennis hisses. He can practically  _ feel _ Mac’s walls go back up, can sense it in the way his back twinges from being shoved onto the thin cushions and the way Mac holds himself ramrod-straight with his knees between himself and Dennis and the way Mac withers under Dee’s venomous glare, and he has never been angrier. “Dee, if you don’t shut your fucking mouth right now then we are going to arrive at the Grand Canyon in a dead person’s car.”

“You were about to  _ blow him—” _ and Dennis is so glad she doesn’t say something that would imply Mac’s willingness and fucking  _ eagerness _ in this whole thing that for a second he thinks that maybe he should back off, but Dee just keeps talking— “right fucking here like the whore you are!”

“Yeah, and I would’ve, if not for you and your big fucking mouth!” Dennis yells, all attempts at keeping his voice down forgotten. “At least I’m getting laid—”

“The fuck’s goin’ on?” Frank asks, his voice rough with the vestiges of sleep.

“Nothing! Nothing, Frank!” Mac says, forcing a laugh. Dennis hates this Mac, the desperate one, the  _ pathetic _ one, the one that can’t untangle himself from his father. “Go back to sleep!”

“Don’ tell me what to do,” Frank grumbles, but then he’s out again and it’s just the three of them.

“Jesus Christ,” Dee snaps. “I’m going back to sleep too. Don’t start blowing each other.”

“Fuck off,” Mac and Dennis say in unison. Mac looks at Dennis for half a second and then shrinks away.  _ Coward. _

Dennis isn’t going to say anything, though— that’s not his job. If he could’ve dragged Mac out of the closet by now, he would’ve. God knows he’s tried. But Mac is hopeless, and these little _trysts_ _(that’s all they are to him,_ the voice in his head whispers, _that’s all_ you _are to him—)_ are all he’s going to get. No point fighting against his lot in life.

He lies back down and tries not to think about how Mac has turned in the other direction.


	2. The Great Recession

_ “We _ have no business sense.  _ He’s _ the one dangling from a noose ten minutes ago,” Mac says. Dennis laughs, and he tries not to let it affect him. He’s learned his lesson. He’s done penitence. He’s not going to get drawn back into this shit again, even if Dennis’s cheeks are flushed and his hair is curling just so at his temples and his pink, pink lips look  _ really _ fucking appealing. God made certain things off-limits for a reason.

“That’s a good point,” Dennis says, flashing a quick, nearly-angry glance at Mac before turning back to Frank. “Let’s start streamlining right now. Frank, you’re out. You’re fired.”

“Oh!” Mac exclaims, watching Frank’s bushy eyebrows fly upwards. “You just got squeezed out, bitch!”

“Oh,  _ I’m _ squeezed out?” Frank snaps. “Well, let’s see how far you two idiots get without Frank Reynolds bailin’ you out every five minutes! I’m outta here!”

He slams down his napkin and waddles off, which is a very unintended reaction, which means now Mac has to fight to keep this conversation normal and not gay. “I’m comfortable being chaff, if you want to be wheat,” he says, and he  _ knows _ the implications of it but the words are out of his mouth now and there’s no turning back.

Dennis looks up at him through his dark lashes  _ (he’s really fucking pretty, _ says that disgusting part of himself) for just a millisecond, and then out of the corner of his eye Mac sees Frank coming back. “Okay, man, whatever,” Dennis says, putting on that smug tone of his. He likes to say that  _ Mac _ is the repressed one, which— he’s not fucking gay, so repression doesn’t really apply— but Dennis has lies in place of memories, and Mac thinks that’s arguably more fucked up.

Frank stabs his steak with his fork and leaves again. Neither Mac nor Dennis move to the other side of the table.

“We should probably fire Dee and Charlie too,” Dennis says, almost like it’s an offering. An olive branch, that’s what the Greeks did, and Dennis had always been taken with the Greeks. More accurately, he’d been taken with their gods. Which technically means that Dennis is an infidel, but Mac isn’t going to say anything about that. (Is  _ wanting _ to be something the same as worshipping, anyway?)

He wants to say something, anything to break this God-awful silence, but it’s Dennis who gets there first. He figures that at some point he should’ve gotten tired of being outpaced, but he doesn’t burn himself to a crisp to get to the finish line. “Are you just not gonna say anything about—”

“Dude, shut  _ up,” _ Mac says, panic snapping through him like a rubber band— sharp, stinging, yet still relatively brief, because Dennis doesn’t want his image tarnished (and that’s undoubtedly what Mac, a street rat who barely graduated high school, would do) as much as Mac doesn’t want God to hear of his sins (or at least to hear Mac  _ flaunting _ them).

But Dennis doesn’t seem to care about his image at the moment, because he says, “Look, man, I don’t give a  _ shit _ about your weird hang-ups—”

_ “My _ weird hang-ups? Okay, Mister-I-Wear-Six-Layers-Of-Makeup-Before-Stepping-Into-The-Hallway.” It’s a fucking cheap shot, but it has the intended effect— disorienting Dennis.

“Okay, you know what, it’s not a  _ sin—” _ (he’s doing that on purpose, Mac knows, because Mac might fight dirty but Dennis fights almost  _ blasphemously) _ “to take pride in one’s appearance, which— you’ve been wearing the same gross DIY tank tops since I  _ met _ you—”

“Shut the fuck up, at least I don’t dress like a mannequin at the Gap—”

Twin red spots rest high on Dennis’s cheekbones as he hisses, “That’s what people who  _ know how to dress _ wear!”

“Jesus Christ, man, you look like a preppy rich asshole!”

“That’s called  _ class! _ Which  _ you, _ in all of your degenerate glory, have never even  _ tasted!” _

“Well, you’re supposedly classy as fuck, and I’ve tasted you more times than I care to count,” Mac retorts, the words falling out of his mouth before he can think about them. He can feel the blood surge to his cheeks, can feel his neck heat up like the Devil is using it to start a fire. Dennis opens his mouth, his eyes glittering with some mixture of triumph and anger, but Mac cuts across him. “You know what? Fuck you, man. I don’t need you and your—” he just barely stops the word  _ fag _ from leaving his mouth, and he feels an inordinate sense of relief—  _ “hedonistic _ lifestyle fucking with me. Fuck you.” He gets up, and he storms out of the Dave & Buster’s as if he has any form of transportation other than the Range Rover, which he’ll now need to hotwire, since Dennis has the keys, and he thinks that Dennis is following him but he can’t be sure. He’s shaking a little, and he wants to punch something— someone—

“Mac, you fucking moron,” Dennis calls out, “get in the car. C’mon.”

Dennis’s voice, by all accounts, should not be soothing. But the tension in Mac’s shoulders dissolves, leaving him with just the dregs of the adrenaline rush and some good old fashioned stubbornness. He spins around on his heel to face Dennis. “Fuck you.”

“Goddamnit, Mac—”

“Don’t take the Lord’s name—”

“Oh, fuck  _ off,” _ Dennis snaps. “Look. Get in the car. Let’s talk about this.”

“No! I’m done with talking about this shit, Dennis! I am not gay— God would  _ not _ have made me gay, man! It’s just not something that would happen!”

He knows Dennis well enough that he can predict the response— some cleverly-crafted joke, or an almost rational argument, or anything that would’ve pissed Mac off even more (that’s the thing with them, Mac gets less articulate as he gets angrier and Dennis gets more, and Dennis always presses his advantage. Always). But for the second time today, Dennis surprises him. “Just get in the car, Mac. Please?”

Mac realizes what Dennis is doing— and in that respect, he really does resemble the Devil, just slightly, with all his honey-covered words of sin. “Fine,” Mac says. They’re just gonna talk. It’s not gonna get remotely close to being gay.

He pulls open the passenger side door and takes a seat, and Dennis slides in from the other side. “Dude,” Dennis says, and Mac can hear the fragile anger behind it. He wonders why Dennis isn’t yelling yet. “It’s not gay, y’know. You’re the one sticking his dick into me. Which makes it straight.”

“Yeah, but I’m still sticking my dick in a  _ dude,” _ Mac says.

“No, you’re sticking it in an ass. You’re tellin’ me that if you met— I dunno, Marilyn Monroe or someone— and she wanted to do anal, then you wouldn’t do it because it’s gay?”

“It’s not about  _ where _ I’m sticking it, it’s about  _ you _ being a  _ dude _ and me sticking it in you.”

“Okay, well— that’s moronic. The gay part is the emotion part. And, like, fucking a dude isn’t gay if you’re not in love with him.”

Mac has known Dennis for nearly two decades now, knows him inside and out, and something in Dennis’s voice is off.

“You swear it’s not gay?”

He doesn’t know why he keeps putting his blind trust in Dennis, every single day, even when they’re fighting against each other. He trusts Dennis, trusts that Dennis will break him carefully, trusts that Dennis will put him back together tenderly.  _ Do you find the pieces of someone easier to hold onto, man? _ he wants to ask, because that’s what this seems like.  _ Do you take everything apart just to see how it works? _

“Promise.”

He looks at Dennis— the flushed cheeks, the messed-up curls, the pale pink lips— and he sees every fracture in Dennis’s too-bright eyes, shining like the sun reflecting off a wave. So he leans forwards, just to get Dennis to stop looking so frail, and as he opens his mouth and deepens the kiss, he wonders when God is going to catch up to them.


	3. Mac and Dennis Break Up

Watching Predator is… awkward.

Dennis spends the entire movie examining and reexamining and re-reexamining his and Mac’s relationship, and when he’s not doing that, he’s forcibly curling himself up into a ball to avoid touching Mac whatsoever (the asshole feels the need to throw his legs across the whole couch, and  _ yes, _ he’s done it before and Dennis has been fine with it, but this time is  _ different). _ (Why the fuck can Mac not see that it’s different?)

He and Mac aren’t codependent. Goddamn Dee, talking like they were in love or some shit. Dennis loves things  _ about _ Mac, but he isn’t  _ in love. _ Trust Dee to mix them up. She’s the one who’s most screwed in the head, anyway. None of the rest of them have set someone on  _ fire. _

He and Mac can’t be in love. No, they can’t, because Mac is pathetic and weak and emotional and Dennis is levelheaded and rational and gets whatever he wants when he wants it, and for him to love Mac would be completely antithetical to the bare facts of his existence. It would never, not in a thousand years, work. It would never even be possible.

Mac doesn’t say a word throughout the whole movie, not even after Frank and Charlie leave (some emergency with a rat). “Why the fuck were you so insistent on Predator in the first place, dude?” Dennis asks. “You didn’t even say anything the whole time.”

“You always get pissy when I do,” Mac replies, indignant.

“That’s because all you do is comment on the dudes’ physiques!”

“That’s not  _ all _ I do!”

“Uh, yeah, it really is.”

“Well, that’s just because—”

“Yeah, whatever, workout routines, blah blah blah,” Dennis snaps. He can feel his patience starting to stretch and wear thin, like a shirt that’s been put through the wash one too many times. “Why the hell do you care about that so much?”

He doesn’t realize that he’s goaded Mac until after the words leave his mouth. “Wh— I don’t give two shits, it’s just that— I mean, I could definitely get more ripped than— why the hell are you asking, even?”

“Goddamnit, Mac, just— you know that no straight man spends that much time looking at the bodies of other men, right?”

Judging from the shade of Mac’s face, that was the wrong thing to say. Dennis doesn’t give a shit. It’s true, anyway. “Are you calling me a fucking—”

“Oh,  _ don’t _ bring out your homophobic bullshit—”

“Well, no straight man spends an hour on his makeup every morning!”

“You’re just stereotyping now!” Dennis says, feeling color rising to his own cheeks. “That’s— I don’t—  _ you’re _ the gay one here!”

“You’re the one whose ass is getting pounded, dude! That’s pretty fucking gay!”

“It’s not— I’m not, like—”

“You’re definitely  _ not _ straight!”

“Neither are you!”

“I am one hundred percent— I’m not a fucking—”  _ Don’t say it, _ Dennis thinks, but there’s never been any use in telling Mac not to do anything—  _ “fag _ like you—”

He doesn’t know how he manages to do it so quickly, but suddenly he’s got a fistful of Mac’s shirt and he’s pulling, until Mac’s nose is three centimeters away from his own. “You goddamn idiot, you’re  _ twice _ as gay as I would be—”

“Shut the  _ fuck _ up—”

“Make me, asshole!”

Mac glares at him with an intensity that suggests he’s about to start throwing punches, but then he’s reaching forwards and pulling Dennis towards him by the back of the head, and their mouths meet with enough heat to melt steel. Dennis releases his grip on Mac’s shirt in favor of reaching up and roughly cupping Mac’s face in his hands, and Mac leans forward and pins Dennis between his body and the arm of the couch. Mac’s lips taste like popcorn, and Mac’s jacket smells like liquor, and Mac himself is just a cocktail of intoxication. “Fuck,” Mac breathes, and as he starts mouthing at Dennis’s neck, Dennis suddenly remembers what their argument was about in the first place.

He pushes Mac off him, and Mac lets out a little whine. “The fuck was that for?” Mac snaps, his lips already swollen.

“This is decidedly gay,” Dennis says, and he wants to tell Mac  _ you have to be okay with this being gay _ but he can’t decide if he’s okay with it himself.

Mac widens his eyes, incredulous. His pupils are blown wide and his hair is fucked to hell and he looks like the pinnacle of lust. “I don’t give a  _ shit,” _ he replies. Dennis knows that Mac won’t mean it in the morning. He pulls Mac back towards him anyway.


	4. The D.E.N.N.I.S. System

God, Mac could put his fist through a wall right now. The second they get home, he slams the door shut and shoves Dennis up against the wall. “Someone’s eager,” Dennis says, unfazed. Maybe Mac should put his fist through Dennis’s smug face.

“What the fuck was all that shit about  _ this is definitely gay?” _ Mac snarls.

“I said  _ decidedly.” _

“And then you go and pull out the fucking D.E.N.N.I.S. system again?”

“What, are you jealous?” Dennis asks. Fucking  _ asshole. _

“You can’t just— you are such a fucking asshole!”

“You’re the one who’s gonna get all weird and repressed in a week! I’m just protecting myself!”

“Protecting yourself from  _ what, _ exactly? From not being a dick?”

Dennis glares at him, and something in Mac’s gut shifts. “Fuck off.”

“You goddamn f—”

“See, I  _ knew _ you were gonna get all homophobic!”

“I— that’s besides the point!”

“Wh— how the fuck is that besides the point?!”

“I don’t fucking know! And that’s not what I wanted to talk about!”

“Holy Christ, Mac, what is your problem if I fuck girls too?”

“I don’t have a problem! You just can’t— fucking—”

“Oh my God, we’re not  _ in a relationship, _ what the fuck is your problem?!” Dennis asks, his glare growing even more venomous.

_ “You _ are my problem!” Mac yells. “You yell at me for being ‘in denial’ all the time, and then you go around and pull this shit!”

_ “What, _ exactly, is ‘this shit?’” Dennis asks. “Because I see it as doing exactly what you would’ve done eventually.”

_ That’s not true, _ some part of Mac’s subconscious says, and suddenly he realizes that  _ yes, _ he would’ve been happy with just banging Dennis for the rest of time.

_ Motherfucker. _

He drops his arm, and Dennis straightens his collar, as if he didn’t just spend two minutes pinned against a wall. “Whatever,” Mac says. “Do whatever the fuck you want. I don’t give a shit.”

“I’m a grown man. I’m already doing whatever the fuck I want,” Dennis retorts.

“Fuck you.” Mac turns around, already fumbling around in his pocket for his cigarettes, and he walks out to the fire escape without casting a second look at Dennis.

The sun is setting on Philadelphia, and the night breeze is just starting to pick up, just enough to cool him off. He sits down on the rickety old deck chairs and lights a cig and watches the flame eat away at the tip of it for a few seconds.

God wouldn’t have made him gay. And Dennis isn’t gay, either. They might be sinners in another way, but not like that. And Mac goes to confession every week and confesses for the both of them, so they’re not going to Hell or anything.

He takes a puff and exhales a cloud of smoke, and he wonders when he stopped feeling the burn in his lungs.

He’s smoked thirteen cigarettes by the time Dennis joins him on the fire escape, and Dennis wordlessly takes the fourteenth one from his fingers and puts it to his own lips. “Hey,” Mac protests half-heartedly. “That was mine.”

“And you took the money to buy it from me,” Dennis replies. “So we’re even.”

Mac rolls his eyes and lights up another one. They sit in silence like that for a while, long enough for the last rays of sun to disappear beneath the horizon, before Dennis speaks again. “You’re the one who’s always saying you’re not gay.”

“I’m not.”

Dennis sighs. “Okay.”

Mac smokes his cigarette down to the filter and flicks the butt off the fire escape, and then Dennis pulls out a joint. “You’ve had that on you the whole time?” Mac asks.

“I don’t have to tell you what illicit drugs I may or may not have,” Dennis says. He lights it and takes a drag, his weary expression relaxing slightly. He passes the blunt to Mac. “Unless you want to shotgun it.”

Mac snatches it, and something behind Dennis’s eyes slams shut.  _ Goddamn you, _ he thinks, and then he leans towards Dennis and kisses him.

Dennis smells like smoke and too much Drakkar Noir. His lips are chapped and he’s kissing almost aggressively, all teeth and tongue, as if he’s proving a point. His hands, pressing against the sides of Mac’s face, are ice cold.

Mac  _ needs _ more.

He opens his mouth and deepens the kiss, running his tongue along the seam of Dennis’s lips. He nips at Dennis’s bottom lip lightly, enjoying the resulting moan, and then he pulls back. “We’re— we’re good, right?”

Dennis looks at him with something unidentifiable in his eyes, and then the corner of his mouth quirks up. “Yeah. I— yeah.”

**Author's Note:**

> hope you enjoyed!


End file.
